LIÊN KẾT TỪ VỰNG TRONG CÁC BÀI ĐỌC CỦA GIÁO TRÌNH “INFOTECH” VÀ GỢI Ý CHO VIỆC GIẢNG DẠY TIẾNG ANH CHO SINH VIÊN NGÀNH CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN = lexical cohesion in the reading texts of infotech textbook and implications for teaching english for it and comp

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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

MAI THÀNH HẠNH
LEXICAL COHESION IN THE READING TEXTS OF
“INFOTECH” TEXT BOOK AND IMPLICATIONS FOR
TEACHING ENGLISH FOR IT AND COMPUTER LEARNERS
(LIÊN KẾT TỪ VỰNG TRONG CÁC BÀI ĐỌC CỦA GIÁO TRÌNH
“INFOTECH” VÀ GỢI Ý CHO VIỆC GIẢNG DẠY TIẾNG ANH CHO
SINH VIÊN NGÀNH CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN)

M.A. Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60 22 15

Hanoi, 2010


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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

MAI THÀNH HẠNH
LEXICAL COHESION IN THE READING TEXTS OF
“INFOTECH” TEXT BOOK AND IMPLICATIONS FOR

TEACHING ENGLISH FOR IT AND COMPUTER LEARNERS
(LIÊN KẾT TỪ VỰNG TRONG CÁC BÀI ĐỌC CỦA GIÁO TRÌNH
“INFOTECH” VÀ GỢI Ý CHO VIỆC GIẢNG DẠY TIẾNG ANH CHO
SINH VIÊN NGÀNH CÔNG NGHỆ THÔNG TIN)

M.A. Minor Programme Thesis

Field: English Linguistics
Code: 60 22 15
Supervisor: Nguyễn Thuý Hương, M.A.

Hanoi, 2010


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TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ......................................................................................................... iv
ABSTRACT................................................................................................................................ v
TABLE OF CONTENTS........................................................................................................... vi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .................................................................................................. viii
PART A: INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 1
1. Background to the study ......................................................................................................... 1
2. Aims of the study .................................................................................................................... 3
3. Significance of the study......................................................................................................... 3
4. Scope of the study ................................................................................................................... 3
5. Methods of the study............................................................................................................... 4
6. Design of the study ................................................................................................................. 4
PART B: DEVELOPMENT .................................................................................................... 5
Chapter I: Theoretical background ........................................................................................ 5

1.1. Discourse ........................................................................................................................ 5
1.1.1. Definitions of discourse ........................................................................................... 5
1.1.2. Text and discourse ................................................................................................... 5
1.1.3. Written and spoken discourse .................................................................................. 7
1.1.4. Discourse analysis ................................................................................................... 8
1.1.5. Discourse context .................................................................................................... 8
1.2. Cohesion ....................................................................................................................... 10
1.2.1. Cohesion and coherence ........................................................................................ 10
1.2.2. Main principles of cohesion .................................................................................. 11
1.3. General features of ESP texts ..................................................................................... 17
1.3.1. Characteristics of ESP ........................................................................................... 17
1.3.2. Issues in ESP ......................................................................................................... 18
Chapter II: An analysis of lexical cohesion in written ESP texts in the course book
Infotech .................................................................................................................................... 21
2.1. Overview of lexical cohesion in the texts of Infotech ............................................... 21


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2.2. Detailed analysis of lexical cohesion in texts of “Infotech” ..................................... 22
2.2.1. Reiteration ............................................................................................................. 23
2.2.2. Collocation ............................................................................................................ 29
Chapter III: Implications for teaching vocabulary and reading comprehension in ESP 31
3.1. Implications for teaching and learning reading ....................................................... 31
3.2. Implications for teaching and learning vocabulary ................................................. 32
PART C: CONCLUSION ...................................................................................................... 35
1. Recapitulation ....................................................................................................................... 35
2. Limitations of the study ........................................................................................................ 36
3. Suggestions for further studies ............................................................................................. 36
REFERENCES........................................................................................................................... I

APPENDICES ......................................................................................................................... III


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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
IT: Information Technology
ESP: English for Specific purposes
Hitech: Hanoi Institute of Technology
EFL: English as foreign language
GE: General English

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES
Table 1 – Sections and texts chosen for analysis from Infotech course book
Table 2 – Frequency of repetition in the six texts
Table 3 – Frequency of occurrence of synonyms
Figure 1 – Frequency of occurrence of lexical cohesive devices used in the sample texts
Figure 2 – Frequency of occurrence of different parts of speech in repetition


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PART A: INTRODUCTION
1. Background to the study
The last few years have witnessed a fast expansion of teaching and learning English for
specific purposes (ESP) at Universities and Colleges in Vietnam. It is one of the compulsory
subjects in the curriculum of colleges and universities delivered by the Ministry of Education
and Training. The subject helps students to improve their English in specialist knowledge,
read materials and develop themselves in their future career. Being aware of the important role
of ESP, teachers at Hanoi Institute of Technology (Hitech) are also making effort to improve

ESP teaching and learning at their college. However, there still exist some difficulties as
follows.
Firstly, Hanoi Institute of Technology was established in 2007 in Tu Liem District, Hanoi. The
college now has more than 2000 students being trained in six areas, of which Finance and
Accounting and Information Technology (IT) are the two main branches. At Hitech, English is
taught in three stages. In the first two stages (stages one and two), a total of 150 45 minutes
class hours are given to General English (GE), of which ninety periods are spent to complete
the course book New Headway Elementary and sixty periods are for New Headway Preintermediate. The last stage is for ESP which is taught in sixty periods. However, this division
has caused some problems. Often, the book New Headway Pre-intermediate is completed in
90 or 120 periods, not in 60 periods as regulated at Hitech. Hence, after GE stages, students
are considered at pre-intermediate level, while in reality, they are not. The problem is that at
IT department of Hitech, the main course book Infotech requires students to have the
knowledge of English at pre-intermediate level. Consequently, it is unavoidable that students
face difficulties in learning ESP.
Secondly, in IT department, there are eleven classes with about 500 students. Most of the IT
students come from rural areas of Vietnam where teaching of English is not paid adequate
attention to. Consequently, their English level is rather limited. Moreover, most of these
students have failed the entrance exam to universities due to poor academic knowledge and


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ability. Their cognitive ability, therefore, is another matter that leads to ineffectiveness in
learning.
Thirdly, Infotech is one of the few textbooks for IT and computer learners on the market now.
It was written by Santiago Remacha Esteras and published in 2001 by Cambridge University
Press. There are seven sections with thirty units about most basic aspects of computer. There
are sections dealing with the four skills of listening, reading, speaking and writing, grammar
and vocabulary in the book. However, these parts vary in different units. The problem is that
among the six parts, reading and vocabulary are the most applicable for teachers and students

at Hitech because of the following reasons:
The listening section is often put at the beginning of a unit, but this section is often long and
the language used is difficult. Besides, generally, the listening tasks compose of note taking
and question answering; Few tasks have multiple choice questions. Consequently, exploiting
the listening part is unfeasible for Hitech low-level learners. For speaking, there are not many
kinds of activities in Infotech and if there are, it is often for pair work and the tasks focus
mainly on technical description and comparison. It is not practical for a large class of about 50
students where the teacher’s role of a controller is vague. That is, it is quite hard for teachers
to cover all these numerous pairs simultaneously in speaking activities; In addition, Hitech
students are not competent and self-conscious enough to fulfill the task themselves. Therefore,
learning possibly turns out to private talking and disorder in class. As for writing, the tasks
often focus on technical description. Within 60 periods, teachers cannot carefully guide their
students to complete the tasks and students’ English level is not high enough to finish a
technical writing paper. More importantly, at this level of training at Hitech, students are not
required to be qualified at document writing. The main objective of this ESP course is only to
provide students with basic reading skills and IT vocabulary to work with specialist
documents. Grammar is quite important in understanding the texts. However, most
grammatical items in Infotech have been covered in the GE stages and students can recall
them easily without teachers’ explanation.


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Yet, there are still complaints from our students about the difficulties they meet with in
reading passages in Infotech. On the one hand, this may derive from students’ psychology.
For many students, it is the first time they learn ESP and an ESP reading text which is full of
technical terms is a challenge to them. Consequently, they are somehow not willing to study
attentively. On the other hand, students may find it hard to remember so many new terms and
understand the text.
For the three reasons above, a suitable approach to exploiting IT texts is really needed at

Hitech. With some experience in teaching ESP for IT students, the researcher realizes the
importance of coherence and cohesion in text understanding and vocabulary retention and
decides to carry out an investigation into cohesive devices employed in the texts of Infotech
course book, especially lexical cohesion. The writer hopes to contribute to improving the
teaching and learning ESP for IT students at Hitech, as well as help the teachers and students
find IT texts more understandable in the light of discourse analysis.
2. Aims of the study
The study aims to:
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find out how lexical cohesive devices are used in the texts of Infotech course book

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draw out some techniques to facilitate reading comprehension and vocabulary learning.

3. Significance of the study
This thesis helps to gain an insight into the use of lexical cohesive devices in the texts of
Infotech course book. It will therefore not only figure out some discourse features in IT texts
but also assist ESP teachers and IT learners in understanding the texts and remembering new
vocabulary more easily.
4. Scope of the study
The study focuses on the analysis of the frequency of lexical cohesive devices in the six texts
of the course book Infotech. The study figures out how often lexical cohesive devices appears


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and how it affects text understanding and vocabulary learning. After investigating and
analyzing the data, some implications will be drawn out for both teachers and IT students.

5. Methods of the study
To attain the aims of the study, the following activities were conducted:
- Reviewing the theories on lexical cohesive devices in discourse analysis and ESP
teaching.
- Collecting six medium-length texts from six chapters in the course book Infotech to
analyze in terms of lexical cohesive devices: reiteration and collocations – how often each
device is used within the texts.
- Making recommendations and conclusions on the basis of data analysis.
The approach to the study is both inductive and deductive, based on the collection and analysis
of sample texts.
6. Design of the study
This minor thesis consists of three following main parts:
Part A: Introduction
Part B: Development
There are three chapters in part B:
Chapter I presents the theory about discourse, cohesion and ESP.
Chapter II analyzes the lexical cohesive devices that appear in the sample texts of Infotech
course book.
Chapter III shares some implications for teaching vocabulary and reading comprehension in
ESP.
Part C: Conclusion
This part sums up the issues addressed in the study, points out the limitations as well as makes
some suggestions for further development.


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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
Chapter I: Theoretical background
1.1. Discourse

1.1.1. Definitions of discourse
Originally, the word “discourse” comes from the Latin word “discursus” which means
“conversation, speech”. In this sense, discourse refers to a wide area of human life. However,
in this discussion, only discourse from the point of linguistics is explained.
According to Nunan (1993), to make sense of text, we need to understand both the grammar
and vocabulary used. However, “grammatical sentences alone will not ensure that the text
itself makes sense”. We need to comprehend how the sentences relate to each other in a
certain way. Hence, “discourse can be defined as a stretch of language consisting of several
sentences which are perceived as being related in some way”. Widdowson (1979) states:
“Discourse is a use of sentences to perform acts of communication which cohere into larger
communicative units, ultimately establishing a rhetorical pattern which characterizes the
pieces of language as a whole as a kind of communication.” Quite different from the others,
Halliday & Hassan (1976) give a simple definition: “We can define text (discourse) in the
simplest way perhaps by saying that it is language that is functional.” By functional, they
simply mean that language is doing some jobs in some contexts as opposed to isolated words
or sentences that one might put on the blackboard. So any instance of living language that is
playing some part in a context of situation, we shall call a text. It may be either spoken or
written, or any other medium of expression that we like to think of. (Halliday & Hassan 1989:
10 cited in Van, 2000)
Other definitions of discourse will be presented as follows when discourse is compared or
distinguished with text.
1.1.2. Text and discourse


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It is important to distinguish between “discourse” and “text”. That is because some argue that
they are interchangeable while some insist that discourse is language in action but text is the
written record of that interaction.
Brown and Yule (1983: 6) states that “text is the representation of discourse and the verbal

record of a communicative act”. Nunan (1993) shares the same idea when he asserts that text
refers to “any written record of a communicative event” (event involves oral or written
language) while discourse mentions “the interpretation of the communicative event in
context”.
Crystal (1992) defines discourse as “a continuous stretch of language larger than a sentence,
often constituting a coherent unit, such as a sermon, argument, joke or narrative”. And, text is
“a piece of naturally occurring spoken, written, or signed language identified for purposes of
analysis. It is often a language unit with a definable communicative function, such as a
conversation, a poster.”
Cook (1989: 158) asserts that discourse is “stretches of language perceived to be meaningful,
unified and purposive” while text is “a stretch of language interpreted formally, without
context”.
It is clear that some linguists use text and discourse interchangeably while some would like to
separate the two terms to refer to different things. However, Van (2000) claims that we do not
need to distinguish between discourse and text. That is because “text or discourse is an
instance of language in use; this means that no text occurs without context”. “[S]eeing a text
without context is like seeing it in a vacuum”; therefore, any effort to distinguish the two
terms will result in complexity.
In this thesis, the author would like to take Halliday and Hassan’s definition of discourse as a
base. More explicitly, in this study, the author will use the term “discourse” and “text”
interchangeably.


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1.1.3. Written and spoken discourse
There is no doubt that spoken and written discourse has many differences. Brown and Yule
(1983) state that spoken discourse contains many incomplete sentences, simply sequences of
phrases. The speaker produces current utterances, monitors what has been said and orients his
next expressions. During the speech, he/ she has no chance to come back to edit what has

been uttered. However, he/ she could make himself/ herself clearer if the listener appears not
to understand. In addition, in spoken discourse, the speaker can change the voice in different
ways or add body languages, pauses or intonation to express himself/ herself better (Nguyen
Hoa, 2000: 16). On the other hand, written discourse consists of complete sentences which are
polished with various choices of language or structures. That is because the writer has time to
look back and cover what he has written to make necessary correction. The disadvantage is he/
she can not be sure whether what written is meaningful or not to the reader. Therefore, the
writer could not make things clear when necessary.
After reviewing the theory of Brown & Yule (1983: 4-18), Nguyen Hoa (2000: 18-20) and Mc
Carthy (1991: 12-18, 25-26), the dissimilarities between the two could be systematized as
follows:
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Grammatical features: Spoken discourse has fewer subordinate clauses, fewer
sequences of prepositional phrases, attributive adjectives but more active verbs.

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Lexical characteristics: Spoken discourse has more repetitions and the percentage of
different words is low.

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Structural features: Spoken discourse is more fragmented. It contains more simple

sentences and coordination words (and, but, so, because, etc.) while written texts use
richness of different structural forms. Besides, written discourse can be divided into
chapters, sections, units, headings, subheadings, quotations, etc.
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Functional features: Spoken and written discourse serves different functions. We use

speech (spoken discourse) largely for the establishment and maintenance of human
relationships (or we use it for interaction), whereas we use written language for working
out and transference of information (the purpose of transaction).


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Generally speaking, spoken and written discourse has a lot of different features. This study,
however, focuses on cohesion in written texts in IT area with all features of written discourse
as mentioned above.
1.1.4. Discourse analysis
Since the concept “discourse analysis” was coined, there have been different thoughts about
this term. Cook (1989) asserts that there are two kinds of language for study. One is used to
teach language or literacy or how the rules of language work. Another is language for
communication, and that is called discourse. And, “the search for what gives discourse
coherence is discourse analysis”. According to Brown and Yule (1983), discourse analysis
“has come to be used with a wide range of meanings which cover a wide range of activities at
the intersection of many disciplines from sociolinguistics, philosophical linguistics to
computational linguistics”. Nguyen Hoa (2000: 11) considers “discourse analysis as a study of
how and for what purposes language is used in a certain context of situation and the linguistic
means to carry out these purposes”
This thesis takes Cook’s viewpoint of discourse as a guideline. That is because the author tries
to analyze how lexical cohesive devices are used to make discourse coherent.
1.1.5. Discourse context
To grasp every discourse, we need to put it in the context. Different contexts may lead to
different form or meaning of discourse. In this part, the term “context, register and genre” will
be discussed to see how they affect discourse.
- Context

Context is an important concept in discourse analysis. David Nunan (1993: 7) defines:
“Context refers to the situation giving rise to the discourse and within which the discourse is
embedded.” According to him, context consists of two types: linguistic and non-linguistic. The
former refers to “the language that surrounds or accompanies the piece of discourse under


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analysis. The latter is the experiential context within which the discourse takes place. It may
include the type of communication, the topic, the setting, the participants, etc.
- Register
Halliday and Hassan (1976: 23) defines: “The register is the set of meanings, the configuration
of semantic patterns, that are typically drawn upon under the specified conditions, along with
the words and structures that are used in the realization of these meanings.” They interpret
'register' as 'the linguistic features which are typically associated with particular values of the
field, mode and tenor. According to the two authors, field is “the total event, in which the text
is functioning, together with the purposive activity of the speaker or writer; includes subjectmatter as one of the elements”. Mode is “the function of the text in the event, including both
the channel taken by language - spoken or written, extempore or prepared – and its genre, or
rhetorical mode, as narrative, didactic, persuasive...” The tenor refers to “the type of role
interaction, the set of relevant social relations, permanent and temporary, among the
participants involved”. It can be said that register reflects the degree of formality of the
particular text by using a characterized set of lexical and grammatical features that are
compatible with the particular register.
- Genre
Couture, 1986 (cited in Swales, 1990: 41) states: “Registers impose constraints at the
linguistic levels of vocabulary and syntax, whereas genre constraints operate at the level of
discourse structure.” Further, “[G]enre does more than specify kinds of codes extant in a group
of related texts; it specifies conditions for beginning, continuing and ending a text.” For
Couture, “genres (research report, explanation, business report) are completely structured
texts, while registers (language of scientific reporting, language of newspaper reporting,

bureaucratic language) represent more generalizable stylistic choices.” Consequently, one
register may include different genres. For example, a story can be a myth, a legend, or a tale.
Moreover, according to Paltridge (2001), different genres are also closely related to each
other. For example, academic essays may cite many other genres such as academic lectures,
specialist academic texts and journal articles.


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In summary, the sample texts we are going to analyze in this study are specialist academic
texts. The language used is very formal in a technically linguistic context.
1.2. Cohesion
1.2.1. Cohesion and coherence
The concept of cohesion is closely connected with text. Halliday & Hassan (1976:4) define
that cohesion “refers to relations of meaning that exist within the text, and that define it as a
text”. Nguyen Hoa (2000: 23) also indicates that “cohesion refers to the formal relationship
that causes texts to cohere or stick together”.
However, the two concepts of cohesion and coherence are often mistaken. Thompson (1996:
147) provides such a clear distinction as the following:
“Cohesion refers to the linguistic devices by which the speaker can signal the
experimental and interpersonal coherence of the text, and is thus a textual
phenomenon: we can point to features of the text which serve a cohesive function.
Coherence, on the other hand, is in the mind of the writer and reader: it is a mental
phenomenon and cannot be identified or quantified in the same way as cohesion.”
In fact, cohesion is the network of different kinds of formal relations that provide links among
various parts of a text. It is expressed partly through surface-structure features of grammar and
vocabulary. Coherence, on the other hand, is understood as the quality of being meaningful
and unified, which is perceived by listeners or readers. As for Nunan (1993), coherence is “the
feeling that sequences of sentences or utterances seem to hang together”. In other words, the
linguistic means that writers or speakers use to form coherence relations are called cohesion.

Generally, if cohesion refers to the linguistic elements that make a discourse semantically
coherent, then coherence involves with what makes a text semantically meaningful.
In summary, it can be said that cohesion is the relationship between words, whereas coherence
is a relationship between concepts and meanings. However, both cohesion and coherence


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establish a connection between an element in one sentence with an element in a preceding
sentence.
1.2.2. Main principles of cohesion
According to Halliday & Hassan (1976), there are two major types of cohesive relation. They
are grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion.
1.2.2.1 Grammatical cohesion
a. Reference
In the view of Halliday & Hassan (1976: 30), reference is “the specific nature of the
information that is signaled for retrieval”. They add:
“In the case of reference the information to be retrieved is the referential meaning,
the identity of the particular thing or class of thing that is being referred to; and the
cohesion lies in the continuity of reference, whereby the same thing enters into the
discourse a second time”.
Thompson (1996:148) also provides a very explicit definition. He states “Reference is the set
of grammatical resources which allow the speaker to indicate whether something is being
repeated from somewhere else in the text.
As for Halliday & Hassan (1976) reference items may be exospheric or endophoric, and if
endophoric, they may be anaphoric or cataphoric. Anaphoric mentions the backward items or
the information that is previously referred to. Cataphoric directs to information that will be
presented later in the text or forward items. Conversely, when they refer from outside the text
or the immediate context of situation to identify the referent, and when backward reference
does not supply the necessary information, they are called exophoric relations.

b. Substitution and Ellipsis
- Substitution
Substitution is the case when a linguistic element is not repeated but is replaced by a
substitute. It is a device to avoid repetition across sentences.


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For example: “My axe is too blunt. I must get a sharper one.” (Halliday & Hassan, 1976: 89)
In this case, one substitutes for axe. It follows that, the substitute tem has the same structural
function as that for which it substitutes. There are three types of substitution: nominal, verbal
land clausal substitution.
- Ellipsis
Ellipsis is the case in which one of the identical linguistic elements is omitted. According to
Halliday and Hasan (1976:144), “ellipsis occurs when something that is structurally necessary
is left unsaid”. It can be seen as “substitution by zero”; yet, the missing part can always be
retrieved from another structure within a sentence or beyond a sentence. Like substitution, it
can be studied in terms of nominal ellipsis, verbal ellipsis and clausal ellipsis.
c. Conjunction
Halliday and Hasan (1976: 227) assert that conjunction is “a different type of semantic
relation”. It is “no longer any kind of search instruction, but a specification of the way in
which what is to follow is systematically connected to what has gone before”. Conjunction
specifies the relationship between clauses, or sentences. Most frequent relations of sentences
are: additive (e.g: nor, not, neither), adversative (e.g: yet, though, but, rather), causal (e.g: so,
then, because, as a result), and temporal (e.g: afterwards, then, next).
1.2.2.2. Lexical cohesion
Lexical cohesion occurs when two words in a discourse are semantically related in some way.
Halliday & Hassan (1976) categorize lexical cohesion into two main types: reiteration and
collocation. In this thesis, I will use this classification to analyze six sample texts in Infotech
course book.

Halliday & Hasan (1976) classify reiteration into types of the same word (repetition)
synonyms or near synonyms, superordinates and general words. In this thesis, we do not take
general words into consideration but add one more cohesive device of opposites. The reasons
are given while the theory about kinds of cohesion is presented.
Reiteration


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- Repetition
It is when the word is repeated within the text. According to Salkie (1995), many words are
used more than once in one text; for example, “a” or “the”. However, he claims that “although
these words play a part in making the text coherent, simply repeating them is not what
counts.” These words always appear in any text in English. They are called function words. On
contrary, there are certain words that appear more than once in a text that we would not expect
them in another. They are content words. He also asserts that repetition of these words help the
text sounds more coherent and it is a tool for the writer or speakers to emphasize on what she/
he wants to write/ talk about.
For example: “There was a large mushroom growing near her, about the same height as
herself; and, then she had looked under it, it occurred to her that she might as well look and
see what was on the top of it. She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of
the mushroom ...” (Halliday & Hassan, 1976: 278). In the example, the word “mushroom” is
repeated.
- Synonym/ near synonym
In written discourse, we often find synonyms or near synonyms. We take the two examples of
Halliday and Hassan (1976:278) as follows: “Accordingly... I took leave, and turned to the
ascent of the peak. The climb is perfectly easy...”. In this discourse, “climb” and “ascent” are
the synonyms.
In another example: (Halliday & Hassan, 1976:278)
“Then quickly rose Sir Bedivere, and ran,

And leaping down the ridges lightly, plung’d
Among the bulrush beds, and clutch’d the sword
And lightly wheel’d and threw it. The great brand
Made light’nings in the splendour of the moon...”
In this piece of poem, “brand” is the near synonym of “sword”.


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We use synonyms and near synonyms to avoid repetition and boredom within a text and to
prove the writing skill of the author. Take an example from Nguyen Hoa (2000: 33) for
illustration, the writer makes use of synonyms as: drop out of, shut down, abandon and cancel
in a skillful way.
The US began dropping out of the program in 1977. France shut down its
commercial super Phonix breeder in 1990. Germany abandoned its completed
reactor in 1991. Last week, Britain cancelled that the technology was unlikely to
become commercially viable for 40 years.
In this thesis, the researcher does not distinguish between the two concepts of synonyms and
near synonyms but generally call them “synonym” because our students’ English competence
is not very high to separate the two.
- Superordinate
Another way of creating coherence for text is using what is called superordinate. For example:
“Brazil, with her two-crop economy, was even more severely hit by the Depression than other
Latin American states and the country was on the verge of complete collapse.” (Salkie, 1995:
15) The link here is the connection between Brazil and the country. The general word is called
superordinate and the more specific is called hyponym. Then, Vietnam, China, Japan, etc are
the hyponyms of country. In general, a word that presents the previously mentioned ones with
high generality is called super-ordinate.
- General words
According to Halliday & Hassan, general words are cohesive devices only when they have the

same reference as what they are presupposing. Besides, they are accompanied by a reference
item “the” or one of the demonstratives “this, that, these, those”. For example, “There’s a boy
climbing the old elm. That old thing isn’t very safe.” (Halliday and Hassan, 1976) In this
example, the general super-ordinate is “the thing’. In this thesis, the author does not mention
general words because it is unusual in the sample texts, so unfamiliar to the students and does
not serve much for the goal of study. Analysis of this cohesive device will make text even
more intricate for teachers and students.


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- Opposites
Halliday and Hassan (1976) claims that “there is cohesion between any pair of lexical items
that stand to each other in some recognizable lexicosemantic relation.” Therefore, this would
include not only synonyms/ near synonyms, superordinate but also pairs of opposites of
various types: complementaries such as boy and girl, stand up and sit down; antonyms such as
like and hate, wet and dry; and converses such as order and obey. In this paper, the author
would like to investigate in this cohesive device because it is a similar concept to students. If it
is a common device in IT texts, students will be easy to find it out. They may also remember
the pairs of opposites easily. Moreover, they can see how it helps to make the text coherent,
and therefore, facilitate text understanding. In this study, the author just desires to take the
general concept “opposites” for all the cases of complementaries, antonyms or converses.
Collocation
Martynska (2004) sums up different views from different authors on collocation in his article.
- The lexical approach: “The meaning of a word is determined by the co-occurring words.”
Therefore, lexis is separable from grammar. Thus, a part of the meaning of a word is the fact
that it collocates with another word. However, those combinations are limited. For example,
we say “make an omelet” but “do your homework”.
- The semantic approach: “This approach goes beyond the sheer observation of collocations
and tries to determine their specific shape”. Their main goal is to figure out why words

collocate with certain other words such as we can say “blonde hair” but not “blonde car”.
- The structural approach: “Collocation is determined by structures and occurs in patterns.”
Collocation is divided into two categories of lexical and grammatical collocation.
Grammatical collocations usually consist of a noun, an adjective and a verb plus a preposition
or a grammatical structure like “to + infinitive” or “that-clause”. Meanwhile, lexical
collocations do not contain grammatical elements, but are combinations of nouns, adjectives,
verbs and adverbs.
Lewis (2000: 62) arranges collocation in the following ways:


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Grammatically: sections such as noun+noun, adjective+noun, verb+noun, etc.
By common key word: collocation with do, make, get, up, speak, etc.
By topic: collocations to talk about holiday, travel, work, etc.
In this study, the author just focuses on collocation by topic because of two reasons. The first
reason is the limitation of time. We cannot analyze all the cases in this thesis because
collocation is quite a big area, especially grammatical collocation. The second reason is the
level of students at Hitech. It can be said that they are of low-level of English competence and
are not very hard-working. They have just passed 150 periods of general English with above
average marks. It is, consequently, not effective to force them to realize or remember such
complicated collocation of common key words with many accompanies.
To make this point clear, we will take Halliday & Hassan and Nguyen Hoa’s views into
consideration.
According to Halliday and Hassan (1976), collocation is “the association of lexical items that
regularly co-occur”. That is because “there is always the possibility of cohesion between any
pair of lexical items which are in some way associated with each other in the language”. He
claims that any two lexical items that have similar patterns of collation tends to appear in the
similar context and links between lexical items create cohesion. Nguyen Hoa (2000) calls this
phenomenon “association” which “may be defined as that existing between two or more words

of one and the same semantic field, possessing some common semantic properties and not
antithetic ones”. In other word, it is the two or more lexical items which share the same lexical
environment in similar contexts. The lexical items in italics of the following example create
strong cohesion among sentences.
Military conflicts with the evolving social values of civilian society is
nothing new. The armed forces are still recoiling from the mere presence, let
alone the theoretical equality of women while some units have integrated the
genders effectively. (Nguyen Hoa, 2000: 33-34)


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1.3. General features of ESP texts
1.3.1. Characteristics of ESP
First of all, there should be a need to figure out definitions of ESP from some authors.
Hutchinson and Waters (1987:19) define ESP as “an approach to language teaching in which
all decisions as to content and method are based on the learner’s reason for learning”. Then,
it is an approach, not a product. The case for language required and learning context will
establish the need for ESP. Consequently, the need for ESP will vary among study purposes.
Meanwhile, Streven (cited in Dudley-Evans, 1998) does not provide a brief definition about
ESP but lists out its characteristics instead. This author brings forward four absolute
characteristics and two variable characteristics.
Four absolute characteristics
- designed to meet specified needs of the learner
- related in content to particular disciplines, occupations and activities
- centered on language appropriate to those activities in syntax, lexis, discourse, semantics
and so on, and analysis of those discourse
- in contrast with “General English’
Two variable characteristics
- may be restricted as to the learning skills to be learnt (for example reading only)

- may not be taught according to any pre-ordained methodology
Dudley-Evans (1998) claims that Streven’ view is the most comprehensive definition of ESP.
However, he makes some changes to make it less confusing.
Absolute characteristics
- ESP is designed to meet specific needs of the learners
- ESP makes us of the underlying methodology and activities of the disciplines it
serves;
- ESP is centered on the language, skills, discourse and genres appropriate to these
activities.
Variable characteristics
- ESP may be related to or designed for specific disciplines;


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- ESP may use, in specific teaching situations, a different methodology from that of
general English;
- ESP is likely to be designed for adult learners, either at a tertiary level institution or
in a professional work situation. It could, however, be used for learner at secondary
school level;
- ESP is generally designed for intermediate or advanced students. Most ESP courses
assume basic knowledge of the language system, but it can be used with beginners.
To conclude, the above definitions show that ESP belongs to English language teaching
(ELT). It may use a different methodology from that of general English because it is used for a
specific teaching situation. But it is not a special kind of English language as many often
think.
1.3.2. Issues in ESP
- Grammar in ESP
Some people believe that ESP teaching is not concerned with grammar. However, it is not
correct. In listening or reading comprehension, if students have grammatical difficulties, they

may wrongly get the idea or misunderstand the text. In writing or speaking skills, especially
when accuracy is focused, grammar plays a very important role.
In the course book Infotech, there are grammar parts that help to facilitate students’ reading.
However, most of these grammatical items have been already covered in two General English
courses in the first and second terms at Hitech. Hence, repeating these is somehow not
necessary.
- Vocabulary in ESP
Dudley-Evans (1998) divides ESP vocabulary into three types of technical vocabulary, semitechnical vocabulary and core business vocabulary. Firstly, it is technical vocabulary. In
general, we agree that teaching technical vocabulary should not be the responsibility of ESP
teacher. “It may be also necessary to ensure that learners have understood technical language


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presented by a subject specialist or assumed to be known by a subject specialist.” (DudleyEvans, 1998: 81) However, in most situations, the subject specialist is not present.
Consequently, the language teacher needs to have a right look at the importance of the role of
technical vocabulary. The teacher should check whether learners fully understand the term and
if not, he/ she has to explain the word meaning for their students. Technical vocabulary in IT
area may include the followings as an example: computer, software, hardware, Internet,
printer, keyboard, main memory, bit and byte, etc. Secondly, the main concern should be paid
to semi-technical and core business vocabulary. However, there are not yet satisfactory
definitions for these two concepts. Later, Dudley-Evans suggests dividing vocabulary into two
broad areas only. They are: “vocabulary that is used in general language but has a higher
frequency of occurrence in scientific and technical description and discussion; and vocabulary
that has specialized and restricted meanings in certain disciplines and which may vary in
meaning across disciplines”.
- Reading skill in ESP
Among four skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing, reading plays an important part
in teaching and learning ESP due to the following reasons. As a matter of fact, ESP is a
combination of subject matter and target language. It means students are shown how the

subject matter is expressed in English. Therefore, after reading each text, they are supposed to
get not only language issues of English but also the content. Therefore, it cannot be denied that
the role of reading skill in teaching and learning ESP is very important.
- Discourse and genre analysis
Discourse and genre analysis has particular influence on the development of research in ESP.
However, there are some different reflections on these two overlapping concepts and this part
is designed to solve this confusion. Discourse analysis is the study of language that involves
the study of cohesive devices between sentences, paragraphs or the whole text. Meanwhile,
genre analysis is “the focus of the text analysis on the regularities of structure that distinguish
one type of text form another type”. Discourse analysis is “valuable in looking at spoken text,
especially turn-taking or topic shift in spoken business discourse, and certain general patterns


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in written text. On the contrary, genre analysis (distinction of features of different texts) is
useful in looking at both written and spoken texts in all areas of ESP”. (Dudley-Evans, 1998:
87)